Tensile and impact properties of chopped carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastics with multiple recycle and regenerate

Abstract

The increasing use of high-value carbon fibre in composites is linked with increasing waste generation. A simple and feasible chopped/hot-press method was proposed for multiple recycled carbon fibre-reinforced thermoplastic composites. The effect of regeneration times on the tension and impact properties of carbon fibre-reinforced polypropylene thermoplastic composites was investigated experimentally. The results showed that the r1-CFRTP specimen decreased by 69.34% in tensile strength and 48.66 % in tensile modulus compared with v-CFRTP. However, its tensile properties were improved with the increase of regeneration times (before 3 times). The impact strength of r2-CFRTP and r3-CFRTP is 12.65%, 20.85% higher than v-CFRTP, while r1-CFRTP and r4-CFRTP are 8.02% and 7.06% lower than v-CFRTP. When the third regeneration makes relatively excellent mechanical properties for recycled carbon fibre/PP composite, the chopped/hot-press method is a meaningful attempt at recycling and reusing the thermoplastic composites.